Geeks To Go is a helpful hub, where thousands of volunteer geeks quickly serve friendly answers and support. Check out the forums and get free advice from the experts. Register now to gain access to all of our features, it's FREE and only takes one minute. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to create topics, post replies to existing threads, give reputation to your fellow members, get your own private messenger, post status updates, manage your profile and so much more.

Advertisements

Ferrari

Posted 20 March 2010 - 07:41 AM

Ferrari

PC SURGEON

Member

1,939 posts

Hi dan7brit,

You have a couple options really. Let me explain:

1. You can "clone" your existing drive which makes an exact replica of your current system and transfers it to the new hard drive. After that, you would simply disconnect the old drive, set the new drive as your primary boot drive and it should boot up as if nothing had changed. Sometimes cloning software doesn't work and there can be troubles. Worth a try I presume.

2. You can perform a fresh install of your Operating System onto the new hard drive. This requires you have your Windows XP disc. Also, you will have to install necessary drives like ethernet, video, and/or audio. There can be others too. It would be like purchasing a new computer... adobe flash would need to be installed, same with adobe reader and Java. Windows would have to be updated to the latest service pack as well. The operating system would run flawlessly, nice, fresh, and clean. If you choose this option, I'll explain further on how to backup and transfer documents like pictures, music, videos, etc.

I think for the regular consumer, cloning is probably the easiest most efficient way to go. Just hope it works. Luckily for you Seagate makes a fine cloning utility called DiskWizard that a friend of mine was just talking about the other day. He has had very good success with it.

Please Note: The instructions I linked to show a laptop. You do not need the external USB Enclosure or extra tools mentioned. You need to just install the new hard drive into the desktop computer and then follow the rest of the cloning instructions. See?

Once the clone is complete you'll see a screen like this: Please read it.

Assuming both of these drives are SATA (having a hard time finding them given the model numbers you have mentioned ???. Anyways, what the above image is saying is that you will have to turn off the computer, unplug your old SATA drive, and then unplug the new SATA drive frpm the second port and replug into where the old one was plugged into. Usually port 0. (zero). After that, restart the computer.

Let me know if you have questions, I'm trying to cover a lot, but I can help walk you through it step by step. That instructional video should help a lot. I'm unaware if you are knowledgeable enough to know what SATA ports on a motherboard look like or where to install the hard drive in your computer, so let me know if you need help.